1 Back to Friends
by Jaxom1221
Summary: Emily is in a coma at the hospital having undergone surgery. What happened to cause the coma? JJ tries to figure out what went wrong. JJ and Emily are both afraid to admit their feelings for each other, but want to just get back to being friends. Will they be able to do it, or is it going to take an outside force to get them back on track?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is my first attempt at a fanfic. I've read a lot of good stories on here and I started getting a few ideas stuck in my idea. My main plan is to stick with the show, but with a slight AU.I've not decided where i want the story to start but I do think it will be after JJ and Will have Henry. ****I might even make him a little bit older.** I'm probably aiming for late S4 or S5 for my starting point.

**And as for a disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds, or any of the characters... even though i might secretly wish for a couple.(after reading a few stories it wont be too much of a secret) Please read and review, any and all feedback will be appreciated. So without more mindless babble, on with the story :)**

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Chapter One

It had been a long day. Sitting there in the hospital, trying to figure out just how everything went wrong to cause her to end up shot, hit in the head with a baseball bat, and now a coma. The doctors decided to medically induce a coma to try to help with the swelling. She's been in the coma now for 12 hours, about 10 hours of that in surgery while the rest of the team is sitting in the waiting room, seeing if she will come out of the coma the same person she was before. The doctors ended up having to go back in a few hours ago because there was still some internal bleeding from the gunshot wound she took getting hit when the unsub fired though the door. She has only been back for about a half hour, and already having a better response that the first time out of surgery.

The doctor walks in at that time, with the clipboard in her hand and JJ jumps up, hits mute on the remote control shutting up the TV, and starts firing questions left and right at her without pausing for breath or waiting for answers. She notices the gun on the woman's hip as she stood up and figures she was with the rest of the agents standing just down the hall in the waiting room. She also recognizes her as the agent that was on the news earlier that afternoon addressing the public about the guy they were trying to help the local an amused grin on her face as JJ stops and looks at her reaction, she says "Hi, I'm Dr White. And you are..."she lets it fall knowing she will fill in the name, since she wasn't able to catch her name from the news since she's been going non stop herself.

JJ shakes her head as if she is trying to calms herself down."My apologies for the way I went off Dr. White. I'm Agent Jennifer Jareau, but you can call me JJ."

"Not a problem JJ. I've dealt with more than a few law enforcement officers in my time as a doctor. I understand how close-knit officers are with their partners." Dr. White says. "Now as for Agent Prentiss. Everything looks better this go around. All her vitals are better, and the brain swelling from the baseball bat is virtually gone, so I'm here to go ahead and stop the anesthesia. She could start waking up withing the next hour or two, but if she does, it probably will not before very long. So I would ask that we make sure somebody is here with her to show her some support. It would go a long way to helping her heal to have friends and family here with her."

"There's no chance of her waking up without me being here." JJ states. Doctor White nods knowingly. "On top of that, the rest of the team is in the hall and I'm sure nobody is leaving until we actually talk to her and see she is alright."

"Alright then, do you have any questions for me?" JJ shakes her head no, since the doctor had answered them all. "Then with that, I will leave you here to head down the hall and explain to the rest of the agents as to the situation. If you have further questions of me, just have one the nurses get me. Or if you need anything else, don't hesitate to ask." Dr. White says as she turns and heads towards the door.

"Thanks Doc." JJ says. As she goes out the door, JJ reaches back down, grabs the remote to unmute the tv but turns the volume down to where it's not a major distraction, and goes back to her seat where she has pulled the chair in the room beside Emily's bed and sits back down. She pull as close the bed as she can. With the steady beeping of the heart monitor going, add in the amount of the stress from the case and waiting in the hospital, exhaustion starts to set in "I'm so sorry Em." JJ whispers. "It's all my fault" she says as she falls asleep with her head on the side of the bed holding Emily's hand.

Meanwhile, out in the waiting room, the rest of the team sits and waits. Everyone has been on edge since the end of the case. Morgan constantly pacing, waiting for his partner to wake up. Rossi and Hotch sitting in solemn silence. Reid, the ever flowing river of facts about how good her chances are of coming out of the coma. And Garcia, wondering how her girl and best friend are going to be if Emily doesn't come out of this OK. Dr White walks out of the room and heads towards them, and everyone gathers to receive the information. "Agent Prentiss is doing just fine. The swelling of the brain has gone down and all her vitals are almost within range of normal, so I've gone ahead and taken her off the anesthesia. I've also asked Agent Jareau that somebody stay with her over the next couple hours so she has a friendly face to wake up too. So if that's all the information you need..." she looks around at all the faces of relief and hears a few sighs, "If you have further questions of me, just have one the nurses get me, i should still be around for some time before the end of my shift." Reid and Garcia go back to where they were at before the doctor showed up. As Garcia sits down, she starts going over all the information she has and as far as she can tell, she was, and still is the only person on the team that knows the way JJ and Emily feel about each other. She just prays that after something like this, they will find a way to actually tell each other how they feel.

Garcia is pulled back to the present by the raised voice of her best friend and gets back up to head over there. "Look Hotch, she's my partner. I'm tired of sitting out here waiting to see her. Now that I know she is alright, I'm going in there." Morgan says.

"I understand that she's your partner and you want to be with her. And it doesn't take a profiler to see you're trying to blame yourself for Prentiss getting shot because you were somewhere else and not with her. I made the call to send Prentiss and JJ to the witness' house. How were any of us suppose to know the unsub was in that house at the time? Her and JJ were just suppose to be re-interviewing a witness about the latest change in the profile to see if it matched him. How were they suppose to know the unsub went there when he hasn't been there in over five years?"

"I don't give a damn Hotch, I'm going in there." Morgan says.

Just then, Garcia walks up and tries to help Hotch out, while secretly helping JJ out knowing nobody else knows about the growing feelings between the 2 agents currently in the room. "Hey Sugarplum, why don't you come sit with me a bit?"

"Look Baby Girl, as much as I would like to continue pacing out here, I need to be in there." Morgan says. "Humor me." She retorts.

They go a short ways away and take a seat and start talking. As they leave, Rossi and Hotch watch them go, and Rossi turns back and asks "You think she can calm him down?"

"You know what the one thing about that girl I've learned over the years?" Hotch asks him.

"Whats that?" Rossi replies.

Hotch says "Never, ever underestimate Penelope Garcia."

"Hehe. Ya, maybe your right. She does seem to pull the biggest damn rabbits out of that CPU of hers at the time we've needed it the most. And even when she doesn't find anything, it still seems to help us narrow down our suspect pools or refine our profiles." Rossi states admirably.

While that conversation was going on Morgan turns to Garcia after taking a sit "So whats the reason you wanted to talk to me?" he asks her.

"Look Derek, I know you want to go in there and sit with Emily, but put yourself in JJ's place. You would want to be the first person Emily sees because you would be blaming yourself. You would need her to wake up and tell you it's not you fault. Give Jayje the opportunity to get that comfort from her. How was anyone to know the unsub was going to start shooting at the door the first time someone started knocking? And who could have guessed he would use the little bit of ammo in the first seconds of the confrontation, and switch to a baseball bat? It could just as well be Jayje in the bed instead of Emily. Jayje could have gone right instead of left. Look, they didn't have the time to wait for backup because of the potential hostage inside. The couldn't have known the unsub already killed her. Alright, I'm not saying you can't see her, just please give her time to wake up so those two can talk it out a bit." Penelope says.

She can see he still wants to still go in there to sit with his partner until she come around. And he can see that she is starting to pick a few things from spending so much time with profilers, and while he thinks about mentioning it to her, he knows how she hates it being brought up. So instead, he just sighs and says "Your right Baby Girl. They need to work through this themselves and I would want the chance to talk to her first if it were me." She smiles all knowingly. "And I hate when you go all profiler and logical goddess on me." he mutters loud enough even Reid glances over knowing the outcome of that statement.

"Oh, you watch your mouth." she replies playfully, laughing as she slaps him on the arm. Morgan starts to laugh and he glances at Reid to see him laughing at the exchange between the two.

Down the hall Rossi and Hotch see the end of the conversation, and when they see Morgan lean back in the chair and Penelope leans into him, resting her head on his shoulder, "Should have known." Rossi says. Hotch just nods. "So the doctor said she should be coming out of the drug induced coma soon if everything keeps going the way it is." Rossi says.

They start to make their way over by Reid and take seat to try to rest a bit while they continue waiting. "Ya, when she does wake up we should wait a while and give Prentiss and JJ some time to talk about what happened." Hotch states. "Give them a chance to work the issues we know are not there but one or the other might try to place there."

"Look, why don't we all just try to get some rest. It's already 4 in the morning, and if all's well with Prentiss tomorrow, we should be able to leave early tomorrow afternoon. Well everyone but Prentiss. She wont be flying for at while, and depending on how good her condition is, she hopefully will be able to drive out as soon as the weekend. It will only be about a four to four and a half hour drive back to Quantico. I say we let Morgan fight it out with JJ to see who gets to drive Prentiss back." Rossi says, not quite keeping the smile from reaching his eyes.

Morgan looks over at Rossi and says "I'm not scared of Blondie in there."

Everyone laughs and starts to relax a bit and tries to get settled in for what will continue to be a long morning.


	2. Chapter 2

Note : First I would like to thank each and everyone who has followed and favorited the story. Thank you so much. In this chapter, there is a flashback to an episode in the show. The flashback refers to a scene from Season 2 Episode 21 "Open Season". I've put that section in bold.

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Chapter Two

**18 hours earlier**

Emily and JJ walk in to the prescient, just a few mins after ten am, the last ones to arrive. Hotch and the rest of the team already at the table already added changes to the profile from the information they had obtained the night before. On top of that, Garcia had just walked in. "Sir, the searches you had me run just finished up a few minutes ago."

"Good. What did you come up with?" Hotch asks.

Garcia replies "I've narrowed down the list to three possible suspects. Gary Duval, Peter Gibbs, and Thomas Anderson. Also, I've already got the deep background checks running, and should be done with in the next couple hours."

"Great job Garcia. Get those files to us as soon as they are done. As for the rest of us, we need to get with the coroner and see about the results from last night victim." Hotch said.

"I would like to go and talk to him if I may Hotch. I've got a few questions to ask about something that's been bothering me about the other victims and might have some more based on what is found." Reid says.

"That's fine Reid. Rossi, I would like you to go with him. The rest of us will go see the parents of the three suspects, see if anything from the past couple years has stood out to the parents. JJ, Prentiss, start with Duval. It's just his mom, since his dad died a couple of years ago. Morgan and I will head to Anderson's parents, they are in the next town over. Should take us about thirty minute to get there." Hotch says.

As everyone gathers their things getting ready to head out, Garcia steps out from where they have her set up. "Wait guys" Garcia starts."The runs on Duval just finished, and up until a his father passed away, he was in and out of the system for years. Started with breaking an entering at the age of sixteen, which escalated to robbery of a local gas station which got him five years up state. He got out just after he turned twenty-one. During that time he started hanging out with the wrong crowds again, but everything changed after his father died less than a year later. Ever since then he cleaned up and held his job for the last couple years. Even got a promotion about 6 months ago and now he's an assistant manager at a major outdoor outlet store in the area. He even bought a new house, moved his mother in, and hired in home health care to help take care of her."

Prentiss and JJ look over to Hotch and asks "So Hotch, what do you want to us to do now?" Prentiss was secretly hoping that he goes ahead and sends them anyways. Her and JJ haven't really had much time to support their friendship. Especially since she had Henry. They hadn't had a girls night out in a while. She won't ever forget that first girls night out they had...

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**"My names Brad. Whats a stunningly beautiful women like you doing in a bar like this?" Brad says confidently.**

**Emily hadn't even left JJ or Penelope for five minutes and already she's got some sleaze ball hitting on her. Looking to see how much more cheese she could get out of him she decides to answer. "Oh, a couple of my co-workers and I needed to get away from the stress of the job. So we decided on having a girls night, you know." she says, adding just enough of interest in her voice to try to draw him in. She grabs the three beers the bartender places in front of her and turns back to the guy.**

**And it works too. "If you want to talk about a stressful job, you should try working for the FBI." he states.**

**"Really" she says faking awe. "Wow. You should come join us." Her and Brad make their ways back across the bar to where JJ and Penelope were waiting. They see her approach, and both notice the slight gleam in her eyes and wonder what she has planned. "Ladies" she starts, "This is Brad, a real FBI Agent."**

**"Really?" Garcia says. Both her and JJ figure out just what was said to bring over. This is going to be so much fun.**

**'Really" Emily says.**

**"No way." says JJ.**

**"That's so exciting. Whats it like at Quan-tee-co?" Garcia says intentionally saying Quantico wrong.**

**"It's ah, quite impressive." Brad states.**

**"What department are you in?" JJ asks.**

**"That's classified." he says, as if he uses this routine before and has figured out the easiest ways to dodge that question.**

**"Must be really tough" JJ starts as she turns to Emily and gives her a wink, " keeping all those secrets."**

**"You know" he says "it's a skill like anything else. Carpenters are good as building stuff and measuring. FBI is good at keeping secrets and kicking criminal ass."**

**JJ and Penelope start to laugh like they are impressed and Emily says "Yeah, well somebody's got to do it. Oh, do you have to carry your gun and badge everywhere you go?" she asks as if it's an after thought.**

**"Affirmative" Brad says.**

**"Can we see it?" Emily asks while giving her best smile.**

**"See what?" he asks like he's trying to avoid the question.**

**"Your badge." she says, smile never wavering.**

**He starts to laugh like it's some joke and is about to make an excuse when "Please?" begs Penelope.**

**They can see that he normally doesn't have to deal with this much pressure when he normally tries this routine. "Sorry that's..." he stumbles out.**

**"Classified" All three girls say at the same time. He smiles, and gets this look on his face like he is sure they are going to let it go, finally.**

**"Yeah it figures" JJ says.**

**"Of course" says Emily. "Tell me Brad, does it look anything like this?" she asks as she flips open her badge.**

**"Or this?" JJ says as she points to hers she had just flipped open.**

**"Or this?" Penelope asks and she flips hers open.**

**Brad stands there for just s couple seconds in stunned silence as he realizes he just got played, turns and heads back to where he was at before trying and failing in his pickup of an actual FBI agent. The girls then bust out laughing.**

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They where really looking forward to a night of fun and friends when JJ got the call about the two unsubs hunting in Idaho. Prentiss hopes someday to rebuild the friendship between her and JJ, and she loves Henry more than she thought possible. Maybe after this case is over, she will mention to Pen and JJ about going out for well deserved girls night.

"Em.." JJ says as she nudges Emily with her elbow, to bring her back to the present, everyone knowing occasionally getting distracted.

"Sorry." Emily says, and notices everyone else had turned to leave, and Garcia was headed back to her work space. "What did I miss?"

"Hotch was going to send us to the parents of Gibbs, but Morgan suggested going ahead and doing the interview to help cross Duval off the suspect list. Hotch agreed and suggests if we have time, to swing by Duval's job and run the dates by his boss. You were

zoned out at the time so I told him if we had time we would do that. And that's when i nudged you with my elbow. So...can we go, or do you want to zone out again?" JJ asks with a hint of sarcasm and a twinkle in her eyes.

"No, but here." said Emily as she tosses JJ the keys.

"What?" JJ asks questioningly.

"You drive. Come on, let's go." Emily says as she walks by JJ. "That way I can zone out again."

JJ glances up at Emily as she goes by, seeing the smirk on her face, and then the laughs and shakes her head as Emily winks at her. "Smartass." JJ mutters. Emily hears it, knowing JJ meant for her too, and just laughs as she goes out the door. JJ smiles, glad to have gotten the response from Emily she wanted and heads after her. She climbs in the SUV and asks "So Em, want to tell me why you zoned out?"

JJ waits, for a second and just before she gets ready to repeat the question, "You want to get with Garcia after this case is over and have another girls night out?" Emily blurts out.

"What? Where is this coming from Em?" JJ asks concerned.

"I was thinking about that first girls night out we had where Brad the FBI Agent" and Emily does the air quotations with her hands as she says that, JJ smiling as she remembers that night, "tried to hit on me. And it got me to thinking, its been a long time since we've had a girls night. So about my previous question. Do you want too?"

"I do remember that night. Poor Brad. We might have went a little rough on him don't you think?" she asks as she looks over at Emily. "Nah" they say in unison, and start laughing again. "Yes, we definitely need to start doing those again. And Garcia has asked the last couple months if we can start-up girls night again. I can get with her on the flight home and let her know."

"OK. Tell her we should be on for Friday night. The way this case is going, we should not be here another three days." Emily says.

"That sounds good. I will get with Spence and see if he wants to spend time with his Godson that night, since it has been a while. He should enjoy that." JJ says. "Lets go get this interview over."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

As JJ puts the SUV in park and shuts off the engine, Emily looks around the neighborhood. "This is a middle to upper scale neighborhood. With all the changes he has made in his life since the passing of his father, this guy looks to have pulled his life together. Its unlikely this is our unsub, but let's get this over with just in case." Emily states.

They get done with Duvals mother around eleven thirty. Everything that JJ and Emily got from the mother points to this not being the guy. "Hey." JJ said to get Emily's attention, and tosses her back the keys. "I'm going to give Hotch a call and fill him in." Emily just nods as JJ hits send on her phone. They climb into the SUV as JJ answers Hotch. "That's right. I'm gonna put you on speaker."

"Morgan and I are on almost done out here at with the Anderson's. I just got a call from the precinct. Media is getting antsy and demanding information." Hotch said.

JJ replies "We can head back to the precinct and I can start on the press release until you get there, Em can go ahead and head to Duvals workplace to talk to his boss."

"Don't worry about that." Hotch said as he interrupts JJ. "You guys go ahead and finish up Duval. Reid and Rossi say they found something interesting at the coroners. I'm going to be meeting them at the precinct to see what they have. Then Morgan and Rossi are going to go talk to Anderson alibi has a discrepancy ."

"OK Hotch. Is it alright that we stop and grab something to eat before we head up to Duvals workplace? It's almost noon and its going to take a half hour to get there." Emily said, as her stomach growls again. JJ starts shaking her head.

"That's fine. Let me know what you find when your done with Duval. Garcia also finished the digging into the suspects. Our most likely suspect now is Gibbs. I will give the parents a call and see if its alright if you guys swing by when your done. We were just informed that the mother of Gibbs is the one who called and told the cops some of the things her son did when he was younger. Had we known earlier, we might have started with them. Duval workplace is only about fifteen minutes from where you will be." Hotch said. And as an afterthought he adds "Oh, and be careful."

About ten minutes later, Emily and JJ finally find a place to eat pull into the parking lot as JJs phone rings. "It's Garcia." she tells Emily. "What's up Pen, got any new for us?" she asks.

"Hows my D.D.B.A.B's doing this fine morning?" Penelope asks cheerfully.

"D.D.B.A.B...Pen what are you talking about?" JJ asks with a puzzled look on her face as she glances over and sees the same look on Em.

"Why my Dynamic Duo of Bad Ass Babes of course. Its been a long time since it has been you two together." Garcia replies.

Laughing as she turns to Emily, "Apparently we are her dynamic duo of bad ass babes." Emily just shakes her head. "So what's the reason for this phone call Pen?" JJ asks her again.

"Oh I was just calling to see how its going since you haven't been paired with Emster in forever. I just wanted to check on you and make sure your all right." Penelope said.

"We're fine Pen. We will talk to you later." JJ said

"Wait" Emily said suddenly. "Put it on speaker." JJ hits the button, then nods. Emily then grins "Garcia, shouldn't the acronym be DDBB? Badass in most cases of use has it as one word and not two."

"Oh contraire my favorite brunette vixen" Garcia replies. "It would have to be two words because you guys are just too amazing to have it as only one word." she says as if it's a matter of fact. And to her, it probably is.

Both JJ and Emily laugh as Emily nods to JJ that she is finished, JJ say to Garcia "Alright Garcia, talk to you later."

"Goodbye my lovelies." Garcia replies and hangs up.

Emily just shakes her head and says to JJ "I hope she never changes. Just remind me to let Hotch know he probably needs to send her for another drug test." she jokes.

JJ laughs as she says "If none of the creeps and psycho's we have seen so far managed to burst her bubble of joyfulness, then I don't think anything will. I've got a question. Why do you think Hotch is taking care of the press this time around? I mean, Communications and Media Liaison is my job."

Emily shrugged. "Not sure what or why he is, but be happy about it. You don't have to be the person answering those wolves from the media."

"Yeah, but sometimes they ask the most irrelevant question pertaining the case. Sometimes they can be brutal with the phrasing, or just unaware of the effects their questions on the families." JJ said. "It just doesn't feel right."

"Hey, don't worry about Hotch, he's a big boy." Emily says with a grin. "He can take care of himself. Besides, if we are going to lose anyone to those wolves, I would rather it be Hotch." She reaches over and pats JJ on the leg, smiling genuinely "You my dear friend are just too pretty."

JJ smiles, secretly wishing Emily would say that and mean it in a different capacity then friends. But since they haven't really been much of friends as of late, she is willing to get back to that point before trying to get to something more. "Well thank you, I will be sure to mention that to Hotch next time I talk to him."

As Emily laughs, she says "Yeah, thanks for warning me you're going to toss me under the bus. And I thought we were friends."

"Trust me we are," JJ starts, "I wouldn't have warned anyone else had they said it."

"Now it's my turn to call you the smartass." JJ just smiles at Emily. The smile that had Emily falling for JJ shortly after they met. "Now back to business. I'm hungry. Lets get in here and eat so we can swing by Duvals place of work." They get out, shut the doors and start to make their way inside. "So what do I feel like having?"

"Was that rhetorical?" JJ asked. "Because I already know what I want."

"Really, what's that?" Emily asked back.

She thinks to herself..._What I really want doesn't come on the menu... _What she replied to Emily was "As we walked in here a waitress walked by with a very delicious looking steak and fries plate, so most likely that unless I find something better on the menu. What about you?"

"Steak and fries sounds great. Better than having to look over a menu and try to decide something." Emily replies.

Just then a waitress shows up to take them to their seats, takes their order and is gone within a few minutes, which leaves them more time to discuss the case for a few more minutes. Then the conversation shifts back to one from earlier in the day about the possible girls night out to come. About an hour later they are paying the bill and head out to finish their interviews.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N : First of all, thank you again to everyone who is following me, or my story. And thank you everyone who has favorited it as well. It really means a lot to me to see people are enjoying this. For anyone who wants to make a request for something they would like to see or would like to happen, you can message me personally or leave it as a review and I will see what I can do to try to make it happen. Keep in mind, I have idea's planned out for the rest of this story, and possible a few more to follow. I do have a few major story arcs I want to do and will try not to deviate from them. Any other advise, you can feel free to leave as a review or message me as well. Again thank you all. You're all wonderful people :)**

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Chapter Four

As Hotch hangs up the phone with he turns around and see Morgan walking up. "We are going to head back to the station. From there you and Rossi will head to talk with Anderson. I need you to put pressure on him and see where he was on the days of the first two murders. His alibi fell through and we need to know where he was."

"Does Rossi know this?" Morgan asks.

"Yes. I need to get ready to do a press release and Reid found something interesting at the coroner's office and I need to know what it is before I do the release. They are also swinging by and grabbing some food and taking it back to the station. Rossi will have yours waiting with him. JJ and Emily just finished with Duvals mom and it doesn't look like he is the unsub. They are going to go question Duvals boss and check his alibi's after they grab some food." Hotch replies.

"Sounds like a plan." Morgan said.

About Twenty-five minutes later Hotchs phone starts to ring. "It's Rossi." he tells Morgan. "Yeah Dave?"

"How close are you guys to the station?" he asks.

"We are about five minutes away." Hotch replies.

"Alright, I'll pull the SUV around front and you can drop Morgan off there so we can take off to question Anderson." Rossi says. "See you in a few. Hey Reid, Hotch will be in just a few. I'm gonna go ahead and pull around front to wait for Morgan."

"Oh here, don't forget Morgans food." Reid says as he gets up and hands Rossi Morgans food. "No point in us going hungry while we spend a day driving around."

As Rossi puts the vehicle in park, he see Hotch pull in and drops Morgan off. Morgan climbs into the vehicle and shuts the door as Rossi hands him a bag. "And lunch is served." Rossi tells him as he starts to head out of the parking lot. "Oh, and you need to eat fast. You've got about ten minutes, give or take, until we get there." Morgan just shakes his head, chuckles and starts eating.

A short while later, they walk into Andersons workplace and they both show their credentials to the receptionist "We need to talk to Mr. Anderson again, is he here?" Rossi asks.

"Right this way please." The receptionist says, and starts making her way to where Anderson works. "Here you are."

"Thank you," Rossi tells the receptionist as she turns to leave. They watch her until she is out of earshot, then ask Mr Anderson "Is there someplace we can talk a little more privately?"

"What's this about? I've already talked to you before. I told you everything I know." Thomas Anderson states as if that all there was too that.

Morgan leans over the desk "Look here, we can either take this somewhere more private or," and at that he stands back up, gestures around "we could do it right here" and he raises his voice with the last part of that statement drawing more than a few looks.

"Alright, alright." he says. He gets up and starts to walk towards a room. "We can use the conference room right back here." As the agents follow him inside, Morgan closes the door being them. "Now, why was it so important that we get to someplace private?" Anderson asks impatiently.

"We need the truth Mr. Anderson. You see, we went and talked to you buddy Robert, and at first he agree and corroborated your story that you were fishing with him the Friday of the first murder. But then, that's when we came across this." At this point Morgan takes a picture out of the file he had carried and lays it down in front of Thomas Anderson. He visibly pales as Rossi continues, "Robert told us you asked him to lie, but you wouldn't tell him why. Said you would tell him later, after everything was over. Now tell me what you were doing here" He taps the photo "on Friday the 16th with our first victim?"

"Look, it's not what you think." Thomas starts.

"Oh it never is." Morgan says, clearly not believing it.

"I was there to meet... a friend, but they hadn't shown up yet. I was getting kind of worried my friend was not going to show when i got the message they were running a little late but that they were on their way. So while i waited i figured i would try to enjoy the night. She was one of the girls that hit on me while I was waiting for my friend. But that was all that went down between us. My friend arrived about twenty minutes later and we had a few drinks then we left. I knew when I saw the victim on the news, and the police questioned me, I would be arrested if I told the truth. My friend couldn't afford it either so I lied. I can't afford loosing my job, and it would have cost me my job you see, even if i was innocent. You know how people always turn on you, always acting like your guilty until proven innocent instead of the other way around." Thomas explains.

"It's understandable to be scared for you job in a situation like that, trust me, we get it. But we need a name. We need to know who you were meeting. Our analysts have combed through the footage from the rest of that night and you never really show back up in view except for when you left, but then all we see is the back of your head. So give us the name of the person you were with." Rossi said.

"I'm...I...I can't. I'm sorry. I just can't." Thomas finally says.

"Looks like were gonna have to take you down to the station if you don't want to talk here." Morgan says as he starts to pull out his cuffs.

"Look, if you can promise me you will speak to them private, I will give you the name, but you can't talk to them here." Thomas said.

"Wait, you mean to tell me that person works here?" Morgan asks, rather loudly.

"Mr. Anderson, please give us the name so we can do our job. If you didn't kill those people, and have someone who can verify your whereabouts, then you're doing yourself a favor by telling us. This will also allow us to pursue the real killer and stop having us waste time with you." Rossi said.

"Alright but please, keep quiet about this. She is married but going through a divorce, which is almost final. We have been seeing each other now for about two months. which by the way, started well after the divorce announcement, but the scandal of an affair will hurt her and me both in this company." Thomas said.

"We can't make any promises because this is a murder investigation, but we will do what we can to help. Please give us her name." Rossi said.

Thomas gives one last sigh, then gives them the name barely over a whisper "Rebekah Pearson."

"As in the wife of your buddy Robert Pearson? Daughter to Phillip Jackson, the man who owns this business?" Morgan asks in disbelief.

"Yes, please, you can't tell Robert about this. They have had problems for a few years now, and about a year ago they decided on the divorce. It's just a few weeks until it's finalized. Phillip knows she has started seeing someone else because he asked her about it two weeks ago, just before she met me which is why she was running late. She never told him it was me though. It's also the reason we didn't stay at the bar very long. We went back to her place, and I ended up staying there for the night." Thomas said.

"What about the night of the 21st? Where were you then?" Rossi asks.

"I...I..I don't remember. Hang on." He pulls out his phone real quick and looks at his calendar for that day. "Ah I took her out for a dinner and a movie." Thomas said.

"Alright we will go question her quietly. Where in the office does she work?" Rossi asks him.

"She wasn't feeling well so her dad told her to take the day, so she went home, eh well, her apartment. When she started the divorce papers, she moved into an apartment complex. Let me write the address down for you." Thomas said.

As he writes the address down, Rossi glances at it and turns to Morgan. "This isn't that far from here, we should be able to get there in a few minutes. Thank you again Mr. Anderson."

"Yeah well, I just hope this doesn't come back to bite me in the ass." Thomas said turning to walk away.

As Rossi and Morgan walk into the apartment complex, they can tell this is a high-end place. They walk up to the counter and show the guard their credentials. "We would like to speak to Ms. Pearson please." Rossi said.

"One sec" the guard said. He pick up the phone and makes a call. It takes less than a minute before hangs up again. "Ms Pearson will see you. Twelfth floor."

As the get in the elevator, the guard there hits the number twelve button, and they ride it up. "This apartment complex has decent security personnel, and seeing all the cameras we have passed so far, if Thomas Anderson was here, then he's not a suspect." Rossi said quietly as he leans closer to Morgan. He turns back to the security guard in the elevator and ask "Do you have a stairwell in this building."

"Yes sir, but there are cameras on every floor, and we normally lock the door on the ground floor so people have to use the elevator. Mostly at night as to help prevent break ins and such." the security guard told them.

Morgan nods his head understandingly and asks "Is there any way we can look at the footage from some earlier dates and see if we the guy we are talking to Ms. Pearson about was here?" The guy nods his head in agreement, then Morgan says "I will ride back down and check that out, you go on and talk to Ms. Pearson."

Rossi watched the doors close, turns and goes to knock on the door. Rebekah Pearson answers the door, "Hello uh..." she glances around expecting 2 agents since that's what she was told by the guard downstairs. "Agent" she finished.

"Dave Rossi, ma'am. I'm with the FBI." Rossi tells her and shows her his credentials.

"Please, come in. I was told there were two FBI agents to see me." she says questioningly.

As Rossi walks into the place, he glances around "My colleague is checking something else right now. But this shouldn't take too long, as we only have a couple of questions."

"Thomas called me and told me you would be coming. So I guess you know about our relationship." Rebekah states.

"Yes, Thomas filled us in on it. How long have you been seeing each other?" Rossi asks.

"About two months now." she replies

"And where were you on Friday the 16th?" Rossi asks.

She looks over at the calendar. "That was the night my dad stopped by. He insisted on talking, which made me late to meet Thomas at the bar. He wanted to know if I was OK and happy. He asked when I had started seeing someone. I answered most of his questions, all but who it was I was seeing." she replies.

"What bar did you go to, and how late were you?" Rossi asks.

"Oh' Mulligans, just off of Jerusalem Dr I think. We've been there a few times and really enjoy pub food. I was only about twenty, twenty-five minutes late." she answers.

"How long were you there and where did you go after?" Rossi asks.

"We were there only about a half hour or so, then I wanted to leave. My dad had upset me a bit, so we decided to head back to my place. I went ahead and left, while Thomas picked up the check. He arrived back at my place about five minutes after I did. I didn't feel like being alone that night so he stayed with me." Rebekah answered.

"What about Wednesday the 21st, where were you between 6:30pm and 9:45pm?' Rossi asks.

"Thomas and I had a date night. He picked me up a little after six, took me to dinner. We finished that around 7:30. Then we went to a movie, which started at 8:15. It was over at 10:30, and we got back to my apartment just a little before eleven." she said.

"Thank you Ms. Pearson. I think you've answered all my questions. We appreciate you cooperation." Rossi said. He gets up and starts for the door, Rebekah getting up to follow.

"No problem Agent Rossi. Did it the information you gathered help prove Thomas is innocent?" she asks.

"It's going to go along way to helping." Rossi said. He pulls the door open and turns to Rebekah "Good day Ms. Pearson." and walks towards the elevator, glancing at his watch. About ten minutes had passed, and pulls out his phone as soon as he heard the door close behind him. He hits the button for the elevator, glances over his shoulder back at Rebekah Pearsons door, hits send on his phone and waits for Morgan to answer. It's answered on the 2nd ring, just as the elevator doors open. "Both their stories were the same. What did you find with the security footage?" He asked.

"Footage shows him coming in Friday night around seven, and not leaving until after eleven the next morning. She got to the apartments approximately seven minutes before he showed up. And on Wednesday, it looks like he came by to pick her up for a date, around six. They were there only a few minutes, before leaving again. Then they come back to the apartment a little after eleven, and he is there until almost one. Already called Garcia to run his financials to see what pops for those nights." Morgan tells Rossi.

"Alright, I'm on my way back down. Lets head back to the station so we can tell Hotch." Rossi states.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I would like to say, I'm not personally to happy with how this biggest part of this chapter went myself. I did a lot of editing on this and changing around, but still could not get it the way I wanted. So I ended up starting over and came out with this. While I'm still not terribly happy with the way this chapter starts, I do start to like the way it went towards the end. It flows so much better into the next couple chapters than the one I trashed even if it is a little shorter than I would like. Let me know what you guys thinks. As always R&R. Let me know what you think.**

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Chapter Five

Less than twenty minutes after leaving the restaurant, JJ and Emily pull up outside the outdoor store where Duval works. They head inside and start towards customer service. They are only there for a couple of minutes when someone comes out of the back with a lot of stuff and asks "Can I help you ladies?"

They both show their badges "We need to see the store manager." Emily said.

"Um.. Mr. Brian left about an hour ago, but he should be getting back any time now. I can give him a call if you want." He suggested.

"Please. We really need to speak to him." Emily said.

"One moment." The guy leaves for a minute then come back "Mr. Brian is on his way back. He said it should take about five minutes. Would you like to talk to Mr. Duval while you wait? He our assistant manager and he is available now."

"Not now. Mr. Brian should be able to help as soon as he is here." JJ tells the guy.

"Do you need help with anything else?" he asked.

"No, we are fine. Thank you very much for you help sir." JJ said politely. They guy turns, takes his stuff he brought with him, and starts stocking it where it goes. She then turns to Emily and asks "You think the whole store know a couple FBI agents are here now?"

"Probably." Emily replies, as she glances around she see more people trying to not be obvious about see why they are there. "Scratch that. They most definitely know."

Lucky for them, someone walks up to them and holds out his hand. "Hello, I'm Mr. Brian. I was told you needed to see me." he said.

"Yes sir, I'm SSA Jennifer Jareau," as she shakes his hand, then turns to Emily who reaches out and shakes his hand as well, "and this is SSA Emily Prentiss. Is it possible to speak to you in private, say your office?" She asks politely.

He nods, and leads the way to his office. He opens the door, holds it as the two women walk in, and closes it behind them. "Please, take as seat" He said as he gestures to the chairs on the other side of his desk, and goes to take his. "Now how can I help the FBI?"

"Well sir, we have some questions about one of your employees. The cops already came in and questioned him, we are just following up on his alibi's" Mr. Brian looks a little worried at this. "Tell us a little about Mr. Duval." said Emily. The look just shifted from worried to confused.

"Why he's one of my best employees. Second youngest assistant manager in our company. And he only missed that by a couple of months." Mr. Brian told them proudly. "He works hard, shows up on time. Before he was promoted, he would work when we needed him to, picked up shifts when he could. Gets along great with all the other members of the staff. I hope he hasn't done anything wrong."

"No, we don't believe he has, but we still have to verify his whereabouts for a couple of days. Particularly Friday the 16th and Wednesday the 21st." JJ tells him.

"On Wednesday he was at our store in South Raleigh. The store manager has a few new assistants that don't know the system we use as well as Gary does. He called up a couple of days before that and asked if I could send him down that way for a few hours to help them out, so I did. As for the 16th, let me look at my calendar real quick. Ah yes, we had a company meeting in Greensboro, all management had to attend. I can even get the video footage from those 2 days and stores if need be." Mr Brian suggests.

"That would be very helpful. If you want to just get the IP for your networks from those stores, our technical analyst can get them faster than trying to have the people there try to send it over." Emily said.

Mr. Brian shakes his head. "It won't be any bother since all our security system records to a separate server. A server that I can get access to from here. And bingo. Got the two days in question, now if you can get me the info for your analyst I can get these sent over." JJ reaches into her bag and grabs one of Garcia's cards and hands it to the guy.

"Thank you very much Mr. Brian, you have been a big help. We appreciate the cooperation. If we need anything else, we will contact you." JJ said as she stands up.

They both reach out and shake Mr. Brians hand as they leave.

As they get to the into the SUV JJ gives Hotch a call and fills him in on the things they learned. They are on the phone for only a couple minutes before she hangs up. "Hotch wants us to go and talk to the parents of Gibbs. They will be expecting us. Hotch said they told him they haven't seen or had contact with their son in almost five years. Garcia also found another 3 possible homicides that could be our unsub thanks to the things Reid found at the coroners. They are going to check those out and see if they are ours or not." JJ fills Emily in.

"Well, then I guess we better get going. It's just a little after 2:30. By the time we get there, get done and get back to the station, maybe we can have something to actually nail someone to these murders. This way we can get back in time for the weekend. I still can't believe we got sent back out so soon after that last case." Emily tells JJ. "I mean hell, I spent half that case with a concussion and the aftermath of one. Damn that bastard Shrader."

JJ nods in agreement "Yeah. But he won't hurt anyone ever again." She reaches over and pats Emily on the leg, "Come let's get this over." and with that, they climb out of the vehicle and make their way to the door.

At the door, Emily sees a doorbell so she reaches up and pushed the button. They wait a minute, but nobody comes to the door. They look at each other, shrug, and Emily reaches out, rings the doorbell again. Still no answer. Giving up on the doorbell, she reaches up and knocks on the door. "Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs. This is Agent Prentiss with the FBI." she yells kind of loudly.

After no response to that, JJ pulls out her phone, steps down off the porch so Emily can still try to get an answer, and calls Hotch. "Hey Hotch, we are not getting any answer. Are you sure they said the were going to be here?" As she finished, Emily is knocking again, calling out to try to get a response. "Yeah well, we are not getting jack. The only vehicle here is an older model town car." She looks up and tells Emily "I'm going to check around back." About that time, they hear two gunshots go off. After a couple of seconds, another two go off. "Hotch, we need EMS and back-up like yesterday. I'm leaving you on the line and pocketing my phone."

She made her way back to the porch beside the door where Emily is getting ready to kick it in. Emily glances at JJ who nods that she is ready. As Emily steps back to kick in the door, shots are fired again, this time holes are splintering through the door. Emily is knocked back, grabbing at her side "SHIT!" she cursed, more at herself for not going to get their vests before they tried to go in.

"Hotch, Emily just got shot. Have EMS step on it." JJ yells at her phone. From just inside the house like it was on the other side of the door they hear someone mutter "Shit."

Emily looks at her hand, seeing blood, but it doesn't look like it's really started to bleed yet. She glances up to see JJ starting at her worried. "I'm fine...mostly. Not bleeding too much right now. I think the bullet is still in there. Lets get this guy." JJ gives her a nod, they hear someone scrambling throughout the house,and Emily steps back in front of the door and gives it a kick. The door flies inward, JJ and Emily stepping in. As they make way down the entrance way, they see there is opening to the left and to the right.

Emily taps JJ on the arm, motions for her to go left, then motions that she will go right. JJ nods, and they make their way to the entrance ways. They glance at each other nod, and go. As Emily starts into the room and looks to the right to clear it something catches her eye coming at her head. As she realizes it's a baseball bat, she tries to duck back behind the wall of the entrance, but she's not fast enough. She knows she managed to get behind the doorway some because she is taking a lot of wood chunks in her face from where the bat hit the door frame. But some of the bat still managed to catch her just above the left temple.

"EMILY!" JJ screams.

The last thought to cross Emily's mind before darkness takes over is "J_ust what I need, another damned concussion." _And with that, she blacks out.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: To rmpcmfan, I've already got the part where JJ takes out the unsub written out. Unfortunately you will have to wait a bit to actually be able to read it. But thanks for the reviews, and thanks to everyone else for the follows. Please R&R and tell me what you think so far.**

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Chapter Six

Nobody got much of any kind of sleep. And its only getting worse as the morning get later and later. As a doctor walks into the room a little after ten, JJ gets up out of the chair. She doesn't remember seeing this doctor in the building at all. He walks up to JJ and introduces himself "Hello I'm Dr Teague. I came on duty this morning. Dr White filled me in on the patients. I had to stop by some critical patients first, then I wanted to come and check on Ms Prentiss to see how she was doing."

"She has still yet to wake" JJ said, a little agitated. She is just so worried that Emily has not woke up yet and its been almost six hours since Dr White took her of the anesthesia. She hopes everything is alright and nothing has gone wrong. She asks him "Is there anything wrong as to why she hasn't woken up yet Dr Teague?"

He walks over and checks out the clipboard, "Nothing looks out-of-place on her medical charts." he said, as he walks around to the side of the bed, checking out some of the machines that are monitoring Emily. "Everything looks fine here too. No need to worry. Everyone is effected differently by the anesthesia. Some wake up within a couple of hours. Others, in jobs much like your own or mine, where you're on the go all the time, not eating as much or as often as you should, it may take longer. It's perfectly fine. She is in great shape. Don't worry, she should be waking up soon." he tells her comfortingly. He can tell that she is still worried. He reaches up and pats her on the shoulder. "She is going to be OK." She nods, ever so slightly. And with that, he leaves.

It doesn't take long before the rest of the team is coming into the room. Rossi, as the last one through the door, closes it behind him so they can block out a large part of the hospital noise coming from the hallway. JJ quickly gives them a brief rundown of what Dr Teague had told her. They all are still worried about her.

Morgan, Rossi and Hotch start talking about how things should be running over the next week or so without Prentiss. With the last couple cases, she has had two concussions in less than a week. And the team is starting to get worn out.

"I think I'm going to see if I can get us taken out of rotation for a couple of weeks." Hotch tells them. "We have all had a very long week. Prentiss has had two concussions, and been shot. If Strauss doesn't agree, well I will...lets just see how that goes." Hotch trailed off.

"Strauss won't like that one bit if you go over her head." Rossi states. "Let's to hope it doesn't come to that."

"Yeah, that big fiasco with Shrader getting released from jail. Then turning around kidnapping someones family forcing them to help. Lets be happy that one turned out as well as it did." said Morgan.

"You guys just keep doing your job the way we always have, I will deal with Strauss and the politics that seem to come with this job." Hotch said to abruptly end the conversation. "She's by the book in the way she does her job, and for the most part, it doesn't affect us too much."

Rossi and Morgan know when to back off. Neither of them like to bad mouth anyone, especially a supervisor higher than their current boss, but sometimes Strauss doesn't make it easy to do.

Meanwhile, Garcia and Reid talk with JJ. "Are you sure you're all right?" Garcia asks her.

"Of course I'm not all right. I'm worried about her." JJ said exasperated. JJ adds as an afterthought "We are all worried about her."

"Of course we are." Garcia said. "But the doctors said she is doing great and that she will wake up. We just have to believe that our Emily will come back to us when she is good and ready. She's just to stubborn to do it on any one terms but her own."

"I'm trying to look at it this way JJ," Reid said, just loud enough for her and Garcia to hear. "The longer its taking her to wake up, the more her brain has had a chance to heal. After the concussion in the last case and now this one, I think her brain decided it was going to be more stubborn than Emily this time." he told her with a slight smile.

"Yeah, Emily will be Emily. Stubborn as hell, and too proud to ask for help to boot. How's that going for you Spence, looking at it the way you do?" JJ asks smiling a bit herself at the thought of Emily fighting her own stubbornness to wake up.

"I said that's what I'm trying, success is another story. By the way, how is Henry? Did you get to call and check on him last night?" Reid asked, concerned as he always is about his godson.

"Yes I did. He is starting to talk so much more. We've, Will and I of course, been working with him on a few words. But he is saying mommy more, and just recently, he started saying love, cup and we have even managed a couple saurs, for his dinosaurs. It was the cutest thing in the world the first time I heard it." JJ tells them, even tho Garcia has heard most of this before.

"How has the separation been on Will?" Reid asked. Seeing her balk at the question he adds, "As concerned as we are about Emily, we are worried about you too."

JJ understands their concern. The decision they came to was one of mutual benefit. As much as they loved each other, they just were not "in love" with each other. The whole pregnancy thing rushed them into decisions they were not ready to make.

She looks up at Reid, deciding to tell him the truth "Will has decided to move back to New Orléans. He already has it set up to start back at his job at the beginning of February. I told Garcia and Emily. Nobody else knows yet." She said dropping her voice to barely a whisper. Reid nods in understanding. Keep it that way. "A short while back, a lawyer came to the house to talk to Will. Lawyer told him he had acquired access to a fund set up in his name for travel expenses anytime he wished to see Henry. Anytime he books a flight under his name, they would ask for a password that would be sent to his cellphone and the flights will be paid for out of that fund. The lawyer will keep in touch with him if anything changes, like his cellphone or any of that." JJ told them, keeping her voice down about all of it. Garcia raises an eyebrow. This was the first time she was hearing about this.

"How...whe...who set up the account for him?" was all Garcia could get out. She was in complete shock and awe. Yes, she always wants to see the good in people, but in her job, it's sometimes so rare that she does.

"The lawyer wasn't at liberty to say... mainly because he didn't know. He got the order to come here and deliver the information. Whoever set it up, set it up through another country where privacy is paid well to be kept, and its harder to get information on account holders. And before you say it," she points a finger at Garcia. "NO. No doing a thing to try to finding out who it is. They went through all this trouble to keep their anonymity, leave them be. I'm sure there is more to it than just the bank considering what has already been done. But please leave it alone Pen."

"Emily did mention at lunch yesterday that she wants to do another girls night." JJ tells Garcia.

Garcia perks up, happy to finally be able to hang out with her best friend and one of the most fiercely loyal people she has ever met. She has even come to admire Emily in some ways. "She even mentioned to try to do it this weekend but now that this happened, i know it wont, but we will have it soon." JJ tells Garcia. She looks back to Reid, "When we do, would you like to look after Henry? I could get Will to look after him, but I thought I might ask you first. Since you see him a lot less."

Reid stares at JJ in amazement. Even with Will still around, she tries to make time for Henry to spend time with his godparents. "I would love too. I take it he is still into dinosaurs."JJ nods. "I might take him to the Smithsonian and show him some of the exhibits." Reid suggests.

JJ and Garcia both smile and JJ tells him "I think Henry would love that." Garcia nods in agreement.

"Just let me know when so that I can make the arrangements. I know this guy i went to college with, who wasn't really friends with me, but we did get along and even did a couple of projects together that is working there now. I might give him a call and see what he is doing." Reid said.

"That sounds like it would be wonderful." Garcia said. "Just don't let Henry bring home the dinosaurs, I don't think JJ has room for you two to be rebuilding it in his room." She tells him with a smile.

"Actually, I've been there before, and I would like to note that there are quite a few there that would fit pretty easily in his room." Reid tells them.

"Oh wow, Boy Wonder does know a joke or two." Garcia jokes. That has them laughing, trying to pass the time waiting to see when Emily will wake up.

About a half hour after Dr Teague came in, JJ notices the heart monitor is showing that Emily's heart rate has started to come up. At first she thought maybe it was her imagination. At this point, while everyone is talking with each other, JJ withdraws from the conversation and starts paying close attention to the monitor. Everyone notices she withdrew, but thinking it has to do with worry, leave her to her own. She sits there, staring at the heart monitor willing Emily's heart rate to keep picking up.

Within a few minutes, the heart rate has increased again. "_Yes" _JJ thinks. Then it goes up another point. _"Keep going." _Then its goes up another two points. _"Oh god please."_ is all she had time to think before it goes up again.

Emily starts to come around. Why is she so groggy? Can someone please shut up all those voices inside her head. She can't make out whats being said either. She has a hard enough time dealing with the one she normally has, she really doesn't have time to deal with more. Try as she might, for some reason she just can't get her body to listen to her. Why won't her damn eyes open? She senses that there is someone beside her, but doesn't know who. If only her eyes would open. Hell, she can hardly rotate her neck.

What the hell happened to her? She can't remember. She realizes who ever is next to her has started moving. "Mmmm" she groans as she tries to turn her head and open her eyes. Finally the extra voices in her head have stopped. _"Good"_ she thinks, _"There's barely enough room up here for just me. Don't need anyone else taking hold." _Now there is some shuffling, followed by a click that sounded very much like a door closing.

"Emily. Can you hear me? Come on Emily, please wake up." begs a sultry voice. Eye lids start to flutter. "That's it, come on. Wake up. Look at me Emily. There you are." said the sultry voice as Emily finally manages to open her eyes. Everything is a blur. She blinks a few times, trying to regain focus. Her vision starts become more clear. Chocolate eyes meets the crystal blue eyes of the blonde that was sitting next to her. "Hey you." said the attractive blonde with the sultry voice.

"Who are you?" asked Emily.

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**A/N 2: ****Hopefully you will not have to wait long for another update. I've got the next couple chapters wrote. Just been doing some finishing touches on them.** Sorry for yet another cliffhanger guys :)  



	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Sorry for such a terrible cliffhanger, but here is the next chapter. I don't plan to have anymore in the next few chapters so I think we are OK. And no, this isn't the chapter that I'm going to show just how badass I think JJ really is. Not yet, anyways. Got to keep you wanting more :)**

**As always feel free to leave me a review or message me on what you think. Also, thanks for all the fav & follows everyone. It means alot to know that people are enjoying this story.**

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Chapter Seven

JJ was frozen with fear. The doctors had all said everything looked great. Pain crossed her face. She felt like she had screwed up and now Emily didn't remember who she was.

JJ hung her head as they started, and she couldn't stop them. She was to blame. Tears welled up in her eyes. She couldn't swallow the sobs that have started. JJ had not thought that when Emily woke up, she would ever feel this bad. But she was wrong. So wrong. Emily didn't know who JJ was. All she could do was hide her face in her hands. But that didn't stop the tears or the sobs.

JJ was on the verge of loosing all control when thinks she heard someone say "JJ." She glanced at the door, knowing it was not Emily. She doesn't remember who JJ was. But looking at the door, she sees it is still closed. "_Great" _she thinks to herself,_ "I'm just hearing things now." _

"Jennifer." There was more firmness in the way her name was said. That and the fact that nobody save her parents ever call her Jennifer. She only let the closest of people ever call her that. JJ looks up at the door again, still thinking it can't be Emily. The door is still closed. Slowing turning her head to look at Emily, she sees a half apologetic smile on Emily. "I m sorry Jen. I didn't mean to scare or hurt you like that. It was stupid of me to do to try and lighten the mood a bit."

JJ, realizing that Emily does in fact know her, starts crying even more as she gets up out of her chair and steps toward Emily. Emily knowing that JJ needed the comfort, hold her hands out waiting to give her the hug she needs. JJ waits just a fraction of a second before bending over the bed to hug Emily.

Knowing she needs to be careful, she tries to be gentle, but Emily wraps her arms around JJ and squeezes. "It's alright Jen," Emily whispered in JJ ears "I wont break." That was all JJ needed to hear as she sits down on the bed to where she can tighten her hug on Emily without either of them being uncomfortable.

Emily doesn't want JJ To pull away just yet, takes a hand and places on the back of JJ's head. She starts to run her fingers through those beautiful golden locks of JJ as she thinks to herself "_God this is the way it should be. She just fits with me so well."_ Emily can't recall how many times she has wanted to run her hand through JJ's hair like this. "_It is too bad JJ is straight."_ Emily thinks. She even has Henry to prove it.

They sit this way for a few minutes as JJ finally starts to regain her composure. The sobs have stopped, and the tears are almost gone. Emily takes JJ shoulders and pushes her back just far enough to look JJ in the eyes. Only JJ is afraid she will see blame from Emily so she looks away.

Very gently a hand cups her chin and starts to turn her back. She meets some resistance "Look at me Jen." Emily said. JJ complies."I'm sorry I shouldn't have pretended I didn't know you when I woke up. I didn't think and I'm sorry. I should not have done that to you."

"Oh Emily, I should be the one apologizing. It's my fault your in here." JJ states.

"Hold on, you think me being in the hospital is all your fault?" Emily asked. JJ nods. "Do not even for a second start to think that. I don't remember everything exactly as it happened right now, but then I just woke up. But I do know this. This is not your fault, you didn't do this."

"But...but...but" JJ tries to interrupts but cant which causes more tears to well up in her eyes.

Emily, seeing she is about to lose it again reaches out and wraps her arms around JJ again and pulls her close. "You listen to me and you listen good Jennifer Jareau. Don't you ever think for one second this is your fault. Ever. You are not to blame. Got it?" Emily asked. "Do you understand Jen? I don't blame you so you don't go and blame yourself."

With what Emily just said to her, JJ does start to relax a bit and she pulls back and looks Emily in the eyes. Those beautiful brown eyes. She could get lost in those. And the way Emily said her name. It just makes her stomach do flips. She hates when most people call her Jen or Jennifer, but with Emily, it sounds so invigorating. _"Oh god why does Emily have to be straight?_" JJ thinks to herself. She can't help but laugh a bit.

"Glad I could make you laugh, now care to fill me in on what I said or what you thought of to make you relax enough to laugh about it." Emily said.

"Ever since you woke up, you have either called me Jen or Jennifer." JJ tells her. Emily can tell this isn't the whole truth. She is a profiler. But she will give JJ time to tell her everything when she wants too.

As to calling her Jen or Jennifer, Emily hadn't even thought about it. But now that JJ mentioned it, she has. "Shit JJ I'm sorry. I didn't even realize I was doing it." Emily states. Even if she wished she could continue, she knew she couldn't. Maybe when it was just the two of them she could, but not around the rest of the team.

"Don't be. It's what actually gave me some comfort. Just the way you say it doesn't make me hate hearing it." JJ tells her. "I could get used to hearing it from you like that."

"I just had to get through to you and I wasn't thinking about it. Don't worry JJ, I won't make a habit out of." Emily said. JJ smiles and nods. JJ was not worried. In fact, she hoped at some point Emily would get to the point of calling her by her name all the time. As one last tear starts to roll down JJ's cheek, Emily reaches up with with her hand and uses her thumb to wipe away the tear. JJ leans into Emily's hand slightly as if wanting it to stay on her cheek.

Emily lets her hand drop from J J's cheek, but places it on her knee, which is beside her hip on the bed and leans back. Her head has started to hurt, and she reaches up with her left hand not wanting to lose contact with JJ right now,. She starts to brush her hair back so she can press it to her temple to try and stop the headache from getting worse. She jerks her hand away as she causes more pain just above her left temple. "Ouch, shit that hurt." she spits out. She looks at JJ and asks "What happened?"

"You didn't quite make it back behind the door frame as Gibbs tried to hit you up side the head with a baseball bat." JJ tells her quietly.

"How long have I been out?" Emily asks JJ.

"Almost a whole day." JJ replies. Shock crosses Emily's face. She cant believe it. JJ hurriedly explains "You had such a bad concussion and after the 1 from the last case, the doctors were worried about swelling and the damage from the hit, they decided it induce a coma. While you were in the coma they sent you in for surgery for the gunshot wound you took through the door. You were still not getting any better, when they found out what they missed, the ended up having to go back in. That's when you started doing better. At around 4 this morning with the swelling went way down, they took you out of the coma. After that you slept until just a little while ago. Its almost eleven in the morning now." JJ tells her.

"Where is everyone else?" Emily asked already guessing as to where they were.

"In the hall." JJ replied. "Do you want me to go and get them?"

"Not yet, I want you to tel me what happened after I got knocked out." Emily said.

"Emily, can it please wait?" She asks a little more subdued than Emily would have thought. "After I saw you crumple from the baseball bat I just kind of lost it. If the paramedics hadn't shown up so quickly I...just... I don't know." JJ rushed out.

"Hey hey, its OK. I'm fine. We don't have to talk about it now." Emily reached out and pulled JJ into yet another hug. JJ sighs with comfort. Emily only hugs her briefly before patting her on the back, and then pulling away again. "I guess everyone else is going to want to come in here huh?" She asked JJ with a slight smile on her face. JJ nods. "Go get them then." JJ gets up and makes her way to the door. As she reaches out to grab the handle Emily asks "Oh, um can you..."

JJ interrupts her "Send Morgan in for a few minutes first?" JJ finished for her. Emily nods. JJ nods in agreement "Sure thing."

With that she walks out the door. Everyone in the hall jumps up as JJ walks out. To prevent any questions, she holds her hand up. Standing in the doorway she looks at Morgan and points with her head to go in "She is waiting for you." Its all she had to say, Morgan steps forward and as he goes into the room, she said in a low voice so only Morgan heard "Hey, I've not told her about what happened after she got hit in the head." He knew that meant JJ still hasn't come quite to terms with how close she came to losing it. She had always been protective of the team, even when she wasn't in the field. He knew she would eventually tell Emily about it.

He wouldn't betray her trust. She had told him and Hotch what had happened, nobody else knew. They were willing to give her the space to come to grip with it all to be able to tell the rest of the team herself. She might not have even told him if it hadn't been a move he had been teaching her in hand to hand combat training she insisted she get.

He does understand that she wants to tell Emily herself so he nods his head to her and turns to Emily "Hey Prentiss how are" is all you hear as JJ shut the door behind him.

JJ looks up and said "Give them a few minutes before we all go in there. She is doing great. She doesn't remember everything just before getting hit, but she is remember slowly. She hasn't lost her sense of humor though. She is still the same Emily." She tells them.

Hotch steps up and lays a hand on her shoulder and asks the question everyone else wants too, but just can't "Does she blame you for what happened?" JJ shakes her head no. Hotch just smiles "Of course she doesn't. Now for the more important question. Do you still blame yourself for what happened?"

Everyone is quiet, waiting for JJ to respond. It takes a minute for her to go over everything that happened and everything Emily had said to her before she replies "Not as much as I was yesterday or even earlier before she woke up. I've just got to keep telling myself its not my fault, its Gibbs." The look in her eyes tell everyone that she will be OK, given time.

Everyone sighs, knowing JJ and Emily are both OK, they all sit back down as Hotch and Garcia stay with JJ. JJ can see the look on Hotchs face knowing what he wants to ask, she turns to Garcia and asks "Hey Pen, do you think you can go get me a coffee please?"

"Of course i can sweetie." Garcia replies and she off to help her best friend.

Hotch watches Garcia go for a second then just loud enough for JJ to hear asks "Have you told her yet?" JJ just shakes her head no. How can JJ tell Emily about how she lost control after Gibbs hit Emily with the baseball bat? The only reason Gibbs isn't hurt more than he was is because EMS showed up a couple minutes after.

Garcia comes back with JJ's coffee, and pulls JJ into a hug and whispers in her ear "She is OK, and you still have time to tell her how you feel." Garcia pulls back letting JJ go and hands JJ her coffee. JJ knew that Garcia would eventually tell her something like that. She was the only person that knew how JJ felt about Emily.

"Thanks Pen." she said. Garcia understood it was for both the coffee and the words of comfort that she had just given her best friend.

At that point the door opens again and Morgan steps out and says "Alright she will see everyone now." Everyone goes through the door and starts talking to Emily. JJ being the last person through the door stops and gives Morgan a small hug. He hugs her back, kissing her lightly on the head and says to her softly "Shes alright. She tough. And so are you Blondie." He said with a smile and guides her into the room closing the door.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

The entire team has been in Emily's room for a couple of hours, now that they all know Emily is in good spirits and getting better, they have relaxed. Some extra chairs were brought in since the room only had two, and Hotch even convinced the nurse to bring in an extra bed.

"Look, we are flying out tonight now that our case is over, and since you wont release her until as early as tomorrow, with a no flying restriction, someone is going to have to drive back to D.C. with her. Since we have checked out of our hotels already, and everyone's things are here, who ever stays will need a bed to sleep in, so could you please bring in an extra?" he asked the nurse. "It will also give the last couple of us who are standing around a place to sit as well so no one is forced to stand until our flight leaves." Within a few minutes, the nurse had wheeled in a second bed. For a second Emily was worried the hospital would move someone else in until Hotch explained it to her as ,more sitting room..

Now everyone was seated, either in a chair, or on the other bed and they were laughing and having fun. Around two pm Dr Teague comes in and checks on Emily once again.

Emily can't help but ask "So when can I get out of here doctor?" It's no secret to the rest of the team that Emily hates being in hospitals. Or that she would do anything to get out of one as soon as possible.

"I'm sorry Ms Prentiss, but we can't allow you to leave right now. We want to monitor you for at least 24 hours after bringing you out of the coma. You were suppose to be informed of this by the nurse. If she didn't come and give you this information..." Dr Teague starts.

"Oh no, the nurse came in and told her Doc." Morgan pipes up. "She is just being stubborn because she doesn't like hospitals." Everyone chuckles and nods in agreement while Emily mumbles something about Morgan being a traitor.

Dr Teague laughs as he understands. "Ah well in that case, I am sorry Ms Prentiss, but hopefully we can get you out of here as early as tomorrow." He tells her.

"You'd better hope I can get out of here by tomorrow then, otherwise your going to get complaints from your nurses, because I'm going to make sure they hear about it if I don't." She tells him back, with a big mischievous grin on her face.

Dr. Teague laughs at this. "Alright." he said. "Everything is looking good so far. We will see you tomorrow as long as nothing goes wrong before then. If you need anything, let one of the nurses know, and please, go easy on them." He said with a smile. After that was all said, Dr. Teague left the room.

"Alright everyone. Our flight leaves at five pm. We should go grab a quick bite to eat before we fly out." He turns to Emily. "Unfortunately, you're not able to fly so you are gonna have to drive back. And since you had 2 concussions, the doctor doesn't really want you driving yourself. That's the other reason for the extra bed. So I can leave either Morgan or JJ to drive you back...whenever you are released." he throws in there at the last second. Then asked"Who will it be?"

JJ still owes Emily the explanation about what happened after she blacked out and this would be a good time to get it. Emily doesn't even have to look at JJ to know That's who she wants it to be for more than one reason, so instead she looks at Morgan. He just meets Emily's eyes and points with his head to JJ, telling her that is who it should be. She doesn't question it. She knows her partner to well. Emily turns back to Hotch and tells him "JJ."

Hotch just nods. "Now for a bit of good news. I talked with the Section Chief, and we have been pulled out of the rotation for 2 weeks unless something major happens. Now as for you Emily. I don't want to see you until next Monday. After the two blows to the head, you're getting the time off." Emily looks like she is about to argue when "Sorry, that call came from above me. It's an order."

Emily sits back and wonders briefly if Strauss might be looking to go at her again, or if it is just so she can get healthy. Whatever agenda Strauss has planned, Emily wont be used for political gain somewhere higher up. Hotch watches Emily, knowing she is thinking the same things he has already gone through, before he continues talking. "Garcia, can I get you to leave them one of the laptops so they can do their reports?" Garcia nods in agreement as Hotch looks to JJ and then Emily. "Sometime tonight if you can, and just email them to me, that way I can get everything finished up on this case tomorrow and turned in."

Both JJ and Emily agree. "I will also need you to give your statement too, sometime after you get back." Hotch told Emily. "JJ has already given hers."

Emily does a quick glance at JJ who looks anywhere but at Emily before turning back to Hotch "I can go ahead and give it now if you want. I remember just about everything up to getting hit in the head, at least, I think I do."

"Alright, you want Morgan to take it?" Hotch asks, not really needing too. She nods.

Everyone gives Emily a hug or words of encouragement before leaving since they will be heading to the airport after they eat except JJ. It's just Morgan and Emily in the room now. Morgan pulls up a chair beside the bed and gets ready to take the statement.

"Why did you want me to pick JJ?" Emily asked.

"Stuff happened to her. Similar to what happened after her and Reid with Hankel. She is a bit freaked and she needs to talk. To you mostly. After her statement to Hotch, He suggested seeing the bureau shrink. She agreed to it. So i figured the ride home would give her time to talk it out with you." he explained to her. "Try not to push her too hard on it. Now let's get your statement taken and over with so I can go eat." he mocks her.

"Yeah, rub it in." They get through the process of her giving her statement with a practiced ease. As Morgan get up to leave, Emily said "Hey Morgan, make sure JJ goes with you guys and eats something please." He nods. "I think im going to try to take a nap for a bit. If you could also," she asks as he just rolls his eyes "see if im on any food restrictions, and if not, get JJ to bring me something back?"

"Sure thing Princess." he replies and heads out the door. As he gets into the hall he asks everyone sitting out there "Who is ready for some food?"

They all get up as JJ said "I think I will stay." Morgan is already shaking his head no and JJ starts to get mad "And just why not?" She asked that with a way more anger than she thought.

He just puts a hand on her shoulder "She was getting kind of tired so she is going to try to take a nap .Emily wants us to check with the nurse if she is on any food restrictions and bring her back something she is able to eat. Since we are heading to the airport afterwords, you need to bring her food back to her." He also adds under his voice to her "She also wants to make sure you eat. She is worried about you too. As we all are." He lets his hand fall to his side as JJ nods in understanding. To everyone else he said "We will be right back."

Morgan and JJ make their way over the nurse is sitting. As the approach the nurse smiles and asks "Good afternoon. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Yes, we would like to know if Emily Prentiss is on any food restrictions? She doesn't really like hospitals and would prefer food from somewhere else. So we were going to go eat and bring her something back." JJ tells the nurse.

The nurse just laughs. "Oh come now hospital food is not all that bad. Let me see...Nope. Nothing in her file about being on a restriction. Would you like for me to check with her doctor just to be sure?"

Morgan and JJ glance at each other before turning back to the nurse "Yes please." They said in unison. They both laugh.

The nurse picks up the phone, makes a call, asks a few questions. "Thank you" She hangs up the phone, looks up and said "Nope, she is good to have whatever you bring back."

They both give the nurse their thanks and head back to the group.

"Alright, let's get going so we can catch a plane." Garcia stated. "I just love that jet." Everyone chuckles at that.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: This Chapter is my longest chapter yet. It just kind of came out and ended up being a lot longer than I had anticipated. I hope you enjoy and tell me what you think. **

* * *

Chapter Nine

After a couple of hours of being out of the hospital hanging out with most of the team, JJ orders some food to take back to Emily. She had fun with everyone, but she is still worried about Emily. There has been nobody there with her since they left. She wanted to get back.

Maybe she can even get a shower since Emily has one in her room. She also wants to get back so she can give Henry a call. He's still young enough that not to notice her extended absences yet. But her mother had told her he might start acting out. She shakes that thought out of her head, Henry has always been really good. Maybe he won't act out like that.

The team sits around at the restaurant for another fifteen minutes before Emily's food finally arrives. With that, everyone gets ready to leave and says their goodbyes to JJ. Garcia gives her a hug, "Take care of her." she said, and then gave JJ a wink with a smirk.

"_What the hell was that wink for and why is she smirking like that?"_ JJ thinks to herself. Out loud she said "She's in good hands."

Morgan adds his two cents as well "Yeah, be sure to bring my partner home." He smiles at JJ genuinely.

Hotch looks around. "Alright, let's go so we can get to the plane." They all head outside toward the SUV's. As JJ heads to a SUV on her own, Hotch tells the rest of them, "I will be there in a minute." Rossi nods, knowing this was coming. Hotch follows JJ over to the last SUV. "Hey." He said to get JJ attention before she climbs into the vehicle.

She turns around. "What's up Hotch?" she asks.

"Just a couple of things." He tells her. "First of all. I don't want to see you until Monday either. And before you start to fight me on this, I talked with the doctor before we left, and he said it will most likely be late tomorrow evening before she is released. They want to do another round of scans early tomorrow, and the test results wont be back until after lunch sometime. I know Prentiss wouldn't be happy to hear that so I asked the doctor to not tell her. I figured you could talk to her and get her to see reason. Which brings me the second thing i wanted to talk to you about. Don't let her leave until the doctors have released her. She might try to bully her way into getting released."

JJ laughs and nods in agreement. "Yeah she probably will try. I can try to talk to her and explain the situation. Hopefully she will listen and not get too upset."

Hotch nods. "That's why I figured she should be told after everyone left. It allows her to be a little more vulnerable without the rest of the team being there. Now for the last thing I need you to do, talk to her about what happened. Out of everyone, she is probably the person that can help you the most, and at the same time, you will be helping her. But please don't do it while your driving. We don't need anymore accidents." He said with a smile. "Be safe and take care" And with that he starts back to the others.

"Will do Hotch. See you at the office Monday." JJ replies and closes the door. She makes her way back to the hospital. She pulls into a parking spot, throws it into park and kills the engine.

Grabbing Emily's food, along with the laptop Garcia left, she climbs out and heads into the hospital, making her way towards Emily's room. She swings by to check with the nurse in charge to see if there has been any change, and satisfied there hasn't goes in closing the door behind her.

Noticing Emily is still asleep, JJ sets the food she brought back beside Emily's bed. She decides to do her report before going to take a shower. "Might as well get this shit over with" she mutters to herself.

It doesn't take her too long to finish her report and get it emailed off to Hotch. She decides to run down to the kitchen to complete a routine her and Emily started shortly after she joined the team. As she gets down there, she spots what she is looking for and goes to by two shakes. She buys herself a vanilla and Emily a strawberry.

As she walks back into the room Emily starts to stir. JJ make her way over to the side of the bed. Emily looks up as brown meets blue and smiles. "Hey, your back finally." Emily tells her, trying to stifle a yawn.

JJ reaches out handing Emily her shake, steps over grabs the food from where she placed it earlier and hand it over as well. "Yeah, I've been back awhile. When I came in earlier you were still asleep so I sat down, filled out the report ,went ahead and sent it off to Hotch." She holds up the shake she has in her hand shaking it a bit "Then I decided we needed these so I ran down to the kitchen."

Emily takes a long drink of her shake before smiling "I love when they are made with real strawberry's. And this food smells delicious." She looks up at JJ "I so needed this."

JJ just smiles back "Not a problem."

JJ takes a seat, as they enjoy the comfortable silence that has fallen between them as Emily eats her food and they enjoy their shakes. It does not take Emily long to finish the food. JJ finishes her shake at about the same time. Getting up to grab the trash from Emily's food, she walks over throwing it all in the trash. Heading to her go bag she grabs the few things she needs, looks over at Emily and said "I need a shower. Its been too long since the one I got two nights ago..." After a short pause, she shakes her head "Man, I can't believe its only been two days since everything started going south."

Emily nods in agreement. "Try looking at it from my perspective. It doesn't even feel like that to me." She said with a smile. "But that doesn't change the fact that I want to get the hell out of here."

JJ laughs. She walks over and places a hand on Emily's shoulder. "Hopefully we can get out of here tomorrow. Look, I wasn't going to say anything until tomorrow, but the doctor wants to run another round of scans to make sure everything is going fine."

"When did this get decided?" Emily asked a little pissed that she wasn't told.

"Before we went for lunch. Only Hotch knows. I don't think he wanted the rest of the team knowing so they didn't insist on staying. The doctor did say its just routine to make sure. Better safe than sorry. He also thought it would be better for you to get this information after they left. He knows how guarded you like to be." JJ tells her.

"Now, as far as the scans go, that is scheduled for in the morning. And since you are recovering, the results are not as rushed as they would be. I know you want to leave, but please, just take it easy. We will get you out of here...as soon as the scans show everything is good. That I promise."

Emily still wants to argue, but knows Hotch is probably right, she would have reacted differently if it had been the whole team here. JJ Just stands there wondering how Emily will react. Emily goes over everything that was just said to her, and if it had been anyone else except Morgan, she would have reacted differently.

Which make Emily wonder if Hotch doesn't suspect her feelings for JJ. She doesn't think so, because she has been real careful around JJ so didn't think he knew or even suspected, but she is going to have to be careful. She had been sitting quiet for a few minutes now, and she shakes the thoughts out of her head.

She looks up at JJ and smiles. "Thanks."

"You would have done the same. Now why don't you go ahead and fill out your report and email it to Hotch while I grab a shower." JJ said.

"Alright, I guess I can do that. I will get this done and maybe call a nurse in here to see if I can grab a shower too." Emily said.

"OK." JJ goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. Emily reaches over and grabs the laptop. She gets set up to fill out the report as she hears the shower start. Emily then gets lost in the everyday activity that means being a profiler. A job she has loved since joining. She has such a great team, she has thought about letting them in, but she just doesn't know how. She blamed that more on the Ambassador than anything.

No matter. She seems to have found a family she never thought she would have. She just wished they really knew her. How would they react if the knew? That is something she wont have to worry about right now. No, she should finish this report and get a nurse in here to see if she can take a shower or not.

She reaches over and presses the call button, and works on the report while waiting on the nurse. The nurse walks in just a few minutes later while Emily is typing away. "Did you need something Ms Prentiss?" she asked.

"Ah yes, I was wondering...Whats the chances I can grab a shower?" Emily asked.

"Well let me see." She walks over to Emily's bed and checks her side where she got shot. "You should be alright. Avoid letting as water come in contact with the bandage as you can. And when you get out, call someone again so we can change the bandage just to be sure." The nurse let her know.

"Awesome" Emily replies.

"Anything else I can do for you?" The nurse asked.

"Nope, thank you. I will get back to filling out this report." Emily told her.

"You're welcome." And with that, the nurse was out the door.

Emily went back to work. She was getting so into doing her job she never heard the shower stop. Hell she never even heard JJ open the bathroom door. So when JJ sat in the chair beside her and asked "You almost finished?" Emily was startled almost to the point of dropping the laptop. Emily looks up at JJ. "Sorry. Didn't realize you were so focused on the work." JJ said.

"No, no its alright. I should have know better." She turns and looks back at the laptop. She was almost done with the report. As she waves her hand at it, she said "I should not have been paying too much attention to this thing. I am almost done though."

She starts typing away at the computer again when JJ asks "So what did the nurse say about you taking a shower?"

"Should be fine as long as I don't let my bandages come into direct contact with the water. After I get out the nurse wants to come back in and change the bandages so they aren't wet." As Emily explains all that, she finishes the report and hits send to email it to Hotch. "And done." She looks back at JJ, just now noticing that she had a towel wrapped around her shoulders to keep her wet hair off her clothes. "_Damn she looks so good sitting there." _Emily thought. "Did you leave any hot water, or did you use it all? Like at the hotels when we are out on other cases and get put in the same room." She said out loud with a grin.

JJ giggles back at her "There should be plenty of hot water. And its not my fault those places have tiny hot water heaters. I can't be blamed when the it lasts only ten to fifteen minutes."

"Cant be blamed? Maybe. But I can blame you if I want to. I'm the one shot here remember. And had a concussion." See the blame cross JJ's face Emily said "Remember what i told you after I first woke up today. I don't blame you so don't you go and blame yourself. It's not your fault." The look on JJ's face starts to change. "Come on, help me to the bathroom so I can get my shower and see just how much hot water you really used."

JJ gets up grabbing Emily go bag as Emily climbs out of the bed. Letting Emily's arm go over her shoulders, she puts hers around Emily's waist to help keep her up and walks her to the bathroom door. Emily grabs the door frame as JJ lets her go. "Thanks JJ." Emily said.

"No problem Em." JJ tells her back. Emily walks through the door and closes it behind her. She knew she wouldn't be in here long. So she goes ahead and starts the shower strips out of the hospital gown, and climbs in avoiding the her side with the bandage. She can still smell JJ's shampoo. She always loved the smell of her shampoo.

Emily is glad she took JJ and Pen and showed them where her stylist is. He has been so great with her hair. He had helped her with so many unfortunate events that she had to attend with her mother. Not as much now, but he still has her info on file and mails her stuff to her when she need it. He also gave JJ and Pen a huge discount on their hair products, mainly because Emily has him on retainer as a stylist. One of the perks of being a Prentiss. Emily doesn't use her money for much.

She stops daydreaming about the past and washes her hair. As she gets done she can feel she is already starting to tire. Drying off and getting dressed, well as dressed as you can get while being the person in the hospital, she starts to dry her hair. Feeling herself get even more tired, she does the same thing JJ did. She just drapes the towel over her shoulders and opens the door.

"Yes Mommy will try to be home as soon as I can. I love you too Henry. You be good for Daddy. Bye bye. Thanks will. Yeah. Hopefully tomorrow, but it will probably be late. Yeah, I might call before we leave here. It's like a 5 hour drive back. Alright. Emily just got out of the shower and.."She looks up at the door as Emily is standing there. Her strength is about gone. "Yeah I gotta go Will. Emily needs help getting back to the bed. Yeah. You too. Bye." JJ tells him as she gets up. She hits the end button and pockets the phone before taking hold of Emily. "Sorry about that. Was hoping I would be finished before you got done."

No problem JJ." Emily said. "You call him every night if you can while we are on a case. No need not too just because your waiting here at a hospital for me to get released." JJ helps Emily back to the bed where Emily presses the nurse call button again. They wait a few minutes until the nurse comes in carrying the stuff to change the bandages.

Within a few minutes the nurse is done she pulls the gown back down and said "There we are."And with that she heads back to the door.

Emily and JJ at the same time "Thank you" as the nurse opens the door.

"Not a problem." she said as she glances back with a smile. She walks out the door and closes it behind her.

JJ walks over to the other bed grabs the remote, reaches over and hand it to Emily. "Find something we can watch." JJ tells her.

Emily starts flipping through the channels until she come's across BBC. They are showing a Dr Who marathon. Her eyes just light up at seeing this. She looks over at JJ who glances over at Emily when she saw the channels stop. JJ just rolls her eyes and starts laughing. "Go for it Em. I don't care." JJ tells her friend. She climbs onto the empty bed and lays back getting ready to watch Dr Who.

"Sweet." Emily replies happy to watch something she enjoys. She does wonder how Matt Smith will portray The Doctor. David Tennant did a really great job. They spend the rest of the evening watching the marathon, with Emily nerding out a bit as each episode starts telling JJ what will happen. JJ just sits there and watches Emily, enjoying how she can be more herself than she does around the rest of the team. She is not as guarded as she can be. She is so sexy when she starts explaining the history of the Cybermen and the Daleks. JJ cant help but smile listening to her talk.

"But my favorite enemy so far including even the old seasons, has to be the Weeping Angels. There has only been one episode so far that has had them in it, but it was such a great episode. There is just so much unknown about the Weeping Angels, makes them fascinating to me." Emily explains. She goes on into detail about what a Weeping Angel is which to JJ, sounds scary as crap. Especially in cities like New York or DC where there are tons of statues.

In between commercial breaks and new episodes coming on, they discuss some options for their girls night out. "Well since we are off rotation for a couple of weeks, and it's not likely we will be able to do it tomorrow like we had planned, we can still do it next weekend." JJ explained to Emily. "Reid is going to watch Henry and Will already knows too. So all we really need to do is to decide exactly what day we want to do it next weekend."

"That sounds like a plan. Lets wait to find out what my restrictions are, how long tomorrow when I get those scans done and can find out the results." JJ nods in agreement. "Now let's get back to Dr Who, I still haven't told you about this episode. This is where The Doctor and Rose go on their first trip with Mickey, who is Rose's boyfriend even though Rose is in love with The Doctor. This is also the first episode where The Doctor shows an actual romantic relationship with someone. It just happened to be Reinette or Madame de Pompadour..."

Emily continues to explain the episodes as JJ listens to them for a while. Then her exhaustion starts to get the better of her, and even though she wants to sit there listening to the sound of Emily's voice, she soon drifts off to sleep. Emily soon realizes JJ has fallen asleep watches a couple more episodes before turning the TV down and trying to get some sleep herself. Hopefully she can get out of here earlier enough tomorrow that she will be able to sleep in her own bed.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

It has been an hour since Emily got back from the scans. JJ and Emily are sitting around in the room having fun just a little before lunch. JJ has been giving Emily a hard time about all the Dr Who knowledge she acquired the night before since getting back from the scans.

"When is knowing Rose Tyler looking into the TARDIS and sending herself the message "BAD WOLF" through time and space ever going to be relevant for anything in the real world Em?" JJ asks with a laugh.

"Relevant, maybe not. But it's a big part of Rose's story. And it's a great story." Emily starts.

"Yeah yeah. I don't need to hear this all again. I got the full rundown last night remember." JJ replies with a smile.

Just as she is about to keep going, Dr Teague knocks and comes in. "Any news Doc?" Emily asks.

"Unfortunately, We just had a couple of car crash victims come in and I'm needed in surgery. I was on my way to start looking at you scans. I just wanted to come by and let you know that as soon as I'm done in the surgery and I get cleaned up I will look at your scans." Dr Teague explains to them.

"Of course" Emily said with a chuckle. "No worries Doc. You go and do what you got to do. Not like I'm going anywhere."

"Alright, I will be back as quick as I can so we can hopefully get you checked out and headed home." Dr Teague said. With that, he leaves.

"Well, didn't figure I would get lucky enough to get out of here early." Emily said with disappointment.

"Don't worry about it Em. We will get you out of here and home as soon as we can." JJ tells her. "How about we get out of here for a while and go downstairs to get something to eat?"

"Sure, that sounds good." Emm replied.

* * *

A few hours later they are back in Emily's room they are arguing about Dr Who again. "Emily, I never said Tom Baker wasn't the best Doctor. I said I've not seen enough, and let's be honest, the first episodes I've watch were the ones we watch last night, to make a decision on who is best." JJ tells Emily.

"You mean to tell me you haven't watched any of the old series when you were younger? I remember seeing them on a lot throughout high school and college." Emily said.

"Well, when you were in high school and college, I was on a soccer field when I wasn't in class or asleep. I didn't give myself time to watch TV. Soccer was my ticket into college and out of the small town life that just wasn't for me. And then from there, it took me to attending a guest reading by Rossi that lead me to joining the academy and striving to join the BAU. I never gave myself any time. I was alway driven." JJ explains. "I honestly didn't know who or what Dr who was until four or five years ago. But I never got into it."

"Well I think if you gave the classic Dr Who a chance you might like it." Emily starts.

"If I may.." They are interrupted by Dr Teague walking in.

"Go ahead." JJ said.

"Start with which ever you do enjoy, be it the current ones on, or the classics. I myself am a Tom Baker fan, though Tennant is giving him a damn good run for his money. So if you likes the episodes you were watching last night, then start there." Dr Teague states.

"That I might be able to do. But" before Emily can interrupt her "I will give the classics their shot as well...eventually. With a kid that just recently turned one it will be difficult."

"Good. Now that it seems that's settled...can I do what I came in here for?" Dr Teague asked.

"Sure thing Doc. But just for the record, it's not settled." Emily states. As she looks over at JJ, she see JJ give her a smirk. Emily just winks back at her, then turns back to the doctor.

"Alright. I've got good news and bad news." Emily groans. "Good news is, as soon as I leave here I will start your discharge papers."

"YES! It's about damn time." Emily almost cheered. "I guess the bad news can't be that bad. So what is it?"

"The bad news is, I'm going to put you on a no field duty restriction for the next month." Dr Teague tells her.

"That's not so bad. We are off rotation for two weeks, so it's just a couple of weeks you can't be in the field." JJ said. "Looks like you will be helping me at the precincts."

"If you're off rotation for two weeks then the no flying for a week is no big deal." Dr Teague said.

"Is there any way to keep the flying restriction on for the whole month that way I'm not tortured at the precincts helping her?" asked Emily with a smile as she points her thumb in JJ's direction.

"Hey now, you know all I have to do is say the word and Pen will make your month at Quantico even worse than being in precincts with me." JJ states.

"Yeah, your probably right. Um, never mind on that extended flight restriction." Emily said with a smile. "Anything else?"

The doctor nods with a grin. "I don't want you staying by yourself for the next few days. Do you have someone who can stay with you or someone you can stay with?" Dr Teague asks.

"You can stay with me. Will is in the process of getting his stuff out of the house and the guest bedroom is open. You can use that if you want." JJ tosses out there as an option.

"Can I bring Dr Who?" Emily asks with a grin.

"Ever the smartass." JJ said. Emily's grin gets even bigger. "Do you have the newer series?" Emily nods. "Of course you do, yeah that's fine."

"There we go Doc." Emily said.

"Alright. Let me go start working on your release forms. I'm sure you're going to want to get changed before you leave. Should be ready to go in less than an hour. The nurse will bring you the forms to sign. I hope you have a safe trip home, and please, be more careful." Dr Teague said as he turned and headed out the door.

"Thanks Dr Teague." JJ turns to Emily. "Well, if you want to go ahead and get the stuff out so you can get changed, I can go ahead and take the bags to the car."

"Yeah, give me a minute." Emily starts digging through her go bag getting what she needs. She zips it back up and tosses it on the end of the bed. "Here you go."

"Ok. I'm going to take the bags down. Be back in a few. I'll call Hotch on the way back up. Maybe he will let me go in tomorrow." JJ said as she grabs her bag from beside the bed she had slept in.

"Alright I can send a message to the rest of the team." Emily said. JJ walks towards the door grabbing Emily's bag as she goes and is out the door.

She is back in less than ten minutes. "Hotch told me not to come in. Didn't figure he would let me. Not after hearing the doctor wanted someone to be with you for the next few days."

"Oh JJ. I will be fine during the day..."Emily started.

JJ holds up her hands "Hey I tried. But he is the boss, and there is no real point in arguing with him. Not since he had Rossi there and he agreed too. I know when and when not to push. This was definitely a not push situation." JJ explains.

"Yeah yeah, you're probably right." Emily still hasn't brought up what happened after she got knocked out again because JJ said they would talk later, even though she really wants too, she has to let JJ bring it up. Something happened afterwords that JJ still isn't quite ready to talk about. If anything, they still have the next few days. Changing the subject to kill the silence that had fallen between them Emily asks "So you got any plans for Henry over the next couple weeks since we are off?"

"Not really, I've talked with Garcia. She is up for girls night next week. And Spence will watch Henry for us. He even plans on taking him to the Smithsonian dinosaur exhibit. Other than that, spend as much time with him as I can before we go back on rotation." JJ answered.

"That's wonderful. The Smithsonian is a great place. You can go there a dozen times and still not see everything there is to see there. I've been there a few times. There's so many different museums to see." Emily said.

They continue talking, and before they know it, the nurse walks in and said "Who is ready to leave?"

Emily jumps up asking"Where do I sign?" which causes JJ and the nurse to laugh.

A short while later JJ is turning the vehicle north on to Capital Blvd which will run them to I85 and into I95 just south of Richmond which will then take them home.

"So when did you want to talk?" Emily asks.

JJ, understanding that Emily is asking about what happened after she got hit and knocked out just said "I figured we can stop around Richmond and grab something to eat. I can tell you what happened then."

"Well then I say you drive like Morgan. I'm getting hungry. And I've spent enough of my time over the last few days laying down or sitting. The less I'm stick sitting in this vehicle the better." Emily said drawing a grin from JJ.

"Alright, let's go." JJ said and punches the gas. "Not like Morgan though. I want to get home in one piece." Both girls grin as they head home.

* * *

**A/N: Yes it's another kind of short chapter, but next chapter is finally the talk between Emily and JJ. What happened after Emily got knocked out... I guess we'll find out within a couple of days. **

**Also on a different note, I've started the next story and was wondering where you wanted it to start 1) right after this story ends or 2) just before girls night starts. And was also wondering if you wanted some Henry and Reid chapters at the Smithsonian? Tell me what you think. **


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Emily and JJ have been on the road for almost four hours now. They ended up stopping just before leaving Raleigh. Emily wanted something to snack on if it was going to be a while before stopping to eat. They had just made it through Richmond. After being stuck in traffic due to some big rig accident that took up all three lanes of I-95. That took them the better part of an hour after they finally got the shoulder cleaned off to allow cars to start getting through.

Both of them were ready to stop and getting a little on edge. They decided to stop at Denny's. If they had known about the accident, they would have done IHOP just off of I-95 just south of Richmond. But they didn't, and Denny's is only a little off the highway so it doesn't take them long to get there and get seated. They had just ordered their meal.

"I guess your ready to hear about what happened after you got knocked out." JJ said.

"Look, if you're not ready to talk about it, I'm fine with that. I don't want you feeling like you have to tell me." Emily starts.

"No, I want to. It's just... There is a lot of emotions that I was going through that I can't even begin to explain." JJ tells her. "Only because I'm still trying to figure them out myself."

"That's fine JJ. Explain what you can. Maybe even talking about it might help you understand those emotions." Emily said.

"Alright well, you know when you signaled me to go left and you were going to go right?" Emily nods. "Well that's the point I actually started to hear the sirens, and was thinking back up was almost there. As I turned into the room and looked around..."

* * *

THUNK!

JJ spins around in time to see what that was. She sees a huge chunk of the door frame missing as a guy is ripping a baseball bat out as Emily slumps to the ground. Emily tried to get back up but fails.

"EMILY!" JJ yelled, but as she takes aim at the guy he runs behind the wall. Screeching comes from outside as a car slams to a halt. Sirens are going as JJ hears someone running towards the back of the house.

Her first thought is to take off towards the guy, but she needs back up and with Emily down, she decides to stay shouting out at whoever pulled up "IN HERE. OFFICER DOWN."

As the two paramedics walk in "WATCH OUT" one shouts at her. Instinctively she rolls forward. As she turns she is tackled by the unsub, which knocks her gun away from her.

They are fighting for control. Lucky for JJ, she has practiced being in situations like this with Morgan. Only difference here is, then it dawns on her "Get Emily out of here." She tells the paramedics.

They drape Emily's arms over their shoulders and drags her out of the house. Now that Emily is gone, JJ's instincts take over. She does what Morgan showed her to do when in this situation. She just hopes she has enough room.

She take a chance to glance behind her. _"Good, I will be OK at least"_ she thinks to herself. With that she relaxes just a bit to offset the unsub, then she pushes the guy to get him to step back. She then steps a bit to the right and brings up her left knee into the guys gut, causing him enough pain to relax his hold on her even more.

At this point she digs her hands into the guys cloths so he can't get away and starts to roll herself on to her back. As she does, she brings up her feet into the guys gut and throws him over her.

He goes flying. At the last second he realized what was happening and tried to correct it, but was too late. The results of that was him not ending up on his back. He came down on the coffee table shoulder first, turning just enough in air to not come down on his face. As the solid oak coffee table slides, Gibbs momentum carries him into the wall. He slams the same shoulder into the wall at such an awkward angle, JJ hears it brake.

Gibbs screams out in pain. He climbs back up grabbing the bat swinging it a bit with his good arm, and JJ is already on her feet looking for her sidearm. Just as she spots it, Gibbs lunges at her again. She avoids the bat and starts backing up, getting Gibbs to step towards her. As he commits to a step, JJ rushes forward and does a sweep of the legs, bringing Gibbs down again in a roar of pain.

JJ rolls away and darts for her gun. About the time she grabs it Gibbs is getting up again. She aims at him "Freeze" she shouts.

This time he drops the bat and dives through the window out into the yard. Without the bat, she can take him hand to hand, she holsters her gun sprinting to the window as he is getting up. She make it to the window as he starts to make a run for it. She carefully jumps out the window landing lightly on her feet and starts chasing the guy down. With only one good arm, his options of escape are limited.

Just then one of the medics comes around the corner blocking his means of escape causing Gibbs to pause. Gibbs starts towards the paramedic which worries the medic and he freezes. The pause Gibbs did just a few seconds earlier has JJ only a few step behind him when he changes direction and heads straight at JJ again.

Anticipating this move, JJ doesn't have time to do anything but throw her elbow right into the guys face. Over the roar of pain coming from Gibbs, she didn't hear the nose break. She didn't have too. She felt it shatter. He falls. As he goes down JJ rips out her sidearm, points it at the guys head. "I SAID FREEZE." JJ shouts.

Just then a couple of squad cars pull up and a black SUV. Morgan is out of the passenger seat before the vehicle finished skidding to a stop and running to help JJ.

"Holy crap JJ, what the hell happened to that guy?" Morgan asked as he pulled his gun to help cover the guy.

Now that there are more people here and Gibbs is basically caught JJ looks at Morgan. "You got him?" she asked.

"Yeah, I got him." Morgan said.

Just as JJ is putting her gun away, Hotch showed up. JJ is starting to come off the adrenaline rush she had and Hotch can tell. "Come on" he says as he leads her to another ambulance that had shown up sometime during the time everything went down. "Lets get you looked at." He turns to the first set of paramedics "Go ahead and get my agent to the hospital. Suspect is fine other than a broken nose and arm." JJ starts to balk at the idea of Emily going to the hospital without someone going with her. "Don't worry JJ, let's get you checked out while you tell me what happened and then I will have Rossi take you to the hospital where you can wait. We can finish the rest of things here." JJ nods.

The paramedic that checked her to make sure everything was good after giving her the all clear tells her "You were amazing in there by the way."

"How much did you see?" JJ asked.

"I got in there right after the guy got up with the broke arm, and was swinging the bat at you. Getting that guy to commit the step towards you just before taking him down with the leg sweep, just brilliant. After he went through the window and you were getting ready to follow, I ran out and around the house to see if he was alright, but he was running at me. I can't believe I froze with him coming at me like that." the paramedic said.

"I honestly felt like he was doing it to try and bring me closer so he could try something. Which he did, but it didn't work as you can tell." JJ said.

"Well, you were still brilliant, not missing a beat or anything when he turned on you like that. Where did you learn that?" he asked.

JJ stepped down out of the back of the ambulance and said while pointing to Morgan "You see that guy fixing to walk into the house?" she asked. He nods. "He taught me everything I used to survive today."

"The other paramedics that are taking the other agent to the hospital say that because you got her out of harms way so quickly, she will most likely be OK. They can't know the extent of the brain damage though. But the bullet wound doesn't look life threatening. We've seen people with way worse come out alright." he replied.

"Thank you" JJ tells him.

She turns and make her way to the SUV as Hotch goes to get Rossi so he can take her to the hospital to get back here and help.

* * *

They had finished eating and were finishing their drinks. They had been at the restaurant for about 40 minutes now. "And that's about it. Hotch was the only person until now to know everything that went down." JJ tells Emily

"Man if I hadn't decided to take a nap, that would have been fun to watch. So Morgan doesn't know yet?" Emily asked JJ.

"I honestly think he does, I saw that paramedic walk up to Morgan just before Rossi got to the SUV, and shake his hand. After that, he pointed in my direction and was saying something to Morgan. He just looked proud at what was being said. But I don't know. He never mentioned anything at the hospital." JJ replied.

"Of course not. He will wait until you're ready to talk about it. Come to think about it, the only person he doesn't do that with is me. I guess it's because we are partners." Emily said.

"Yeah, that's totally it." JJ says with sarcasm, not believing that's the reason at all.

"Hey be nice to me, I just got released from the hospital." Emily said with a smile.

"Alright, how about you pick up the check, and I go call my son since it will be late when I get home?" JJ replied as she stands up and pulls out her phone.

JJ hits send on her phone and starts to leave. "And how is that being nice?" Emily asked. JJ just turns back with a smile, and gives Emily a wink, then walks away. Emily just shakes her head.

As Emily is climbing into the vehicle JJ says "Alright Will, we will see you in a few hours." She hangs up the phone.

"So hows Henry?" Emily asks not really needing the answer.

"Happy I'm on my way home. I told him you were coming to stay a few days too. He was excited. Started talking about you and dinosaurs, so." JJ said with a shrug.

"Have you gotten him The Land Before Time movie yet?" Emily asked.

"Actually Will and I had talked about it awhile back. We just never made it around to getting it for him." JJ said.

"If you haven't, don't even bother. Can we swing by my place so I can switch fresh cloths out in my go bag, and I can also grab that movie for him to watch? I can also grab my Dr Who series." Emily said.

"Sure thing." JJ replied. With a curious look on her face she asks Emily "Care to explain why you own that movie Em? You were like fifteen when it came out." JJ said.

"17 actually. It came out on VHS just before my 18th birthday. As to why I bought it, it's because George Lucas and Steven Spielberg both help executively produce it." Emily replied as if it should be common knowledge.

"You do have it in DVD at least right?" JJ asked. "Because I don't think I own a VHS player."

"Yes, I own it on DVD. Still have the VHS in storage. I did buy the DVD when it released sometime in 2003." Emily replied.

"The fact that you remember when you bought stuff like that reminds just how much like Reid you can be sometimes." JJ tells her.

"What's that? Intelligent? Sophisticated? Knowledgeable? Well informed?" JJ is shaking her head no. "What then?" Emily asks.

"Nerdy!" JJ replied.

Emily laughs "Yeah maybe a little. I just thought I would watch stuff like that with my kids. But now I'm going on 40. I don't think I will find someone who will understand me, everything about me. Understand why I do this job, why I specialize in child cases, why I avoid my family name like it's the plague. I just don't think it will happen."

"Oh come on now Emily, you could find a guy that understands all that and who wants to have children. You just to believe you will find him. I could help find a guy you would be great with." JJ suggested.

"Thanks but you know how I am about people poking around in my personal life. Besides, I really stopped looking over the last couple years." Emily said. She then thought _"Ever since I met you and got to know you JJ."_

"Don't worry about it Em. If i find a guy that is somewhat like what you are looking for, I just want you to consider meeting him and seeing how it goes, OK?" JJ said.

"Let's just see how things go. We can talk about it further next week when we do girls night. I just want to get this car back home to where I can relax somewhere besides a car or a hospital." Emily said. "_That and it gives me time to figure out how to bring out the fact that I'm a lesbian. Easiest way would probably be to just come out with it...but I will worry about that later." _Emily thinks to herself.

"Alright. So do you think I should go ahead and get all of the movies as well?" JJ asks.

"Probably at some point. Might also look at the TV series as well. But all that can come a little later." Emily said.

And with that, the rest of the trip home they discussed a variety of things. The type of stuff friends talk about. It took some time for them to both be ready to get back to where they were at one point. Back to friends.

The End

* * *

**A/N: Yes, this is the end of this story for now. I'm in the process of writing the next story right now. It will be covering girls night out. I would just like to take this time to thank everyone who followed and/or favorited the story and/or me. It means alot to know people enjoyed reading this. I have noticed some errors within the story itself that i do plan to go back and fix so the story reads a little better. But I do want to try and get a good part of the next story finished up before I go back and fix those errors I've seen. Thank you again and until next time :-)**


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